Latvia, Orthodoxy in

JOHN A. MCGUCKIN

The Latvian and Estonian territories were first missionized by the Church of Pskov

from neighboring Russia, and by the 13th century there were several Orthodox churches established. These were given a serious setback as the 13th century progressed, however, and with it vigorous military campaigns of the Teutonic Knights in the Baltic lands, who forcibly replaced Orthodox Church culture with Latin. Orthodoxy recovered somewhat with the annexation of Latvia to the Russian Empire in the 18th century, but the modern story of Orthodoxy really begins again in the 19th century with the appointment in 1842 of the energetic missionary bishop of Riga, Filaret Gumilevskii (d. 1866). Orthodoxy, however, was predominantly seen as a “Russian” Church. Within five years of his arrival, Filaret had energized an Orthodox native language translation program and supervised the building of twenty perma­nent and forty temporary churches. Six years after the initiation of his ministry, the German aristocratic establishment in Latvia took fright at this, and in 1848 secured from the Russian Holy Synod Filaret’s transfer out of the country. His successor as Orthodox bishop of Riga, Platon Gorodetskii (d. 1891), was quiet for only a few years, however, before continu­ing a vigorous missionary campaign of his own. It has been estimated that between 1845 and 1850 as many as 100,000 Latvians may have converted to the Orthodox faith. The Orthodox were popular in that they used Latvian language in their church services, while the Lutheran majority were seen as “German” to Orthodoxy’s character as “Russian.”

After the Russian Revolution the Lat­vian Orthodox suspended relations with the Russian Orthodox Synod because of its perceived submission to the Bolshe­viks. In 1920 Bishop Janis Pommers (1876–1934), a native Latvian, was released from captivity by the Soviets and assumed the leadership of Orthodoxy in Latvia, negotiating with the political authorities in 1926 to recognize the Orthodox Christians’ right to assemble, and their political distinction from the “Russians” which had been a source of great tension in the country, causing the destruction of many Orthodox churches in the years between the Russian Revolution and 1925. In that year the bishop was himself elected to the Latvian parliament. Bishop Pommers was assassinated by the Soviet secret service in 1934, and in 1936 the Latvian Orthodox petitioned to be released from Moscow’s ecclesiastical juris­diction and placed under the omophorion of the patriarch of Constantinople. When the Soviet armies invaded Latvia in 1940 the Latvian Orthodox hierarchy was brought once more under enforced obedi­ence to the Moscow patriarchate, and the incumbent Metropolitan Augustin Peterson (1873–1955) was ejected and Bishop Sergey Voskresenskii was installed. He too was shortly afterwards murdered, in the events surrounding the German invasion of the country. The Nazi author­ities refused to allow the “Russian” Ortho­dox to reestablish themselves in Latvia in any form, but Metropolitan Augustin Peterson led a diaspora community into exile, and from postwar Germany, begin­ning in 1946, the Latvian Church Abroad was organized by him, under the aegis of an exarchate of the patriarchate of Constantinople. After the fall of the Soviet system, a Latvian Orthodox Church structure was initiated once more. After 1990 the senior hierarch was Metropolitan Alexander Kudryashov. The church relates most closely to the patriarchate of Moscow, with some local autonomy. There are estimates of approximately one third of a million Latvian Orthodox today, predominantly of ethnic Russian origin.

SEE ALSO: Lithuania, Orthodoxy in; Russia, Patriarchal Orthodox Church of

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Cherney, A. (1985) The Latvian Orthodox Church. Welshpool, UK: Stylite Publishing.